I love a good muffin. I love the challenge of creating a muffin free of gluten that is still fluffy, with a good crumb, and most importantly tastes good.

I also love cupcakes – basically a muffin with a fifty fifty ratio of cake to frosting – what’s not to like?

Janetha is off enjoying a tropical beach right now, so I took the spabettie show over to her place – and I brought several of my favorite muffin and cupcake recipes with me! Each of these recipes is gluten free, all but one (containing yogurt) is vegan.

When I made pepperoni chili, I wanted to pair it with a muffin. I knew from the tastes as it simmered all day that this chili was going to be epic – I needed an equally knock your socks off muffin to accompany it.

The recipe I found is epic, this I guarantee.

The flavor is buttery and cheesy and if comfort was a flavor, I’d say that too.

When I was growing up, my favorite cookie was something like a meltaway. My mom made these perfect cookies that had finely chopped walnuts in them, and they were boomerang shaped and coated in powdered sugar.

Mom called them butter crescents. I called them boomerangs.

She rarely made them – they were from a cookbook that had it’s own flour blend. Then every recipe simply used a certain measure of that flour blend. Hmm, I wonder if mom was ahead of her time and these were gluten free? Sounds like many gluten free flour blends I hear about now…

These cookies are a bit reminiscent of those old boomerangs of my youth (although now I know those boomerangs are more like a wedding cookie, only shaped differently) in that they melt in your mouth. These have that added zing of citrus I love.

Mildly sweet, with a crunchy exterior and a soft middle – these are quick to make and perfectly delicious.

This past Monday, my friend Liz shared her orange cooler cookies. We had a snow day on Monday, so I made these that very same morning. We ate some warm, while watching the snow.

Liz and I both love to bake, and I love every thing she makes. We once talked about how fun it would be to open a bakery together. This has now become the basis for many of our conversations – we keep adding things to our menu. We decided our bakery needs several flavors of this cookie.

I’m glad most of you likedthe birds – those guys were fun to photograph. I still look at the photos and laugh – the bold guy in front is just so cute.

Yesterday I was up early as usual, and had a craving for a muffin for my birthday breakfast. I have been doing the juice fast again the last several days, and took a break yesterday as we had dinner plans (I will tell you all about it soon – fantastic dinner!). With plans to start the juice fast again today, I figured I could make some muffins worthy of a birthday and still be good for us.

So while I am enjoying juice for breakfast, I am sharing blueberry pumpkin hemp muffins with you.

One of my favorite muffins is blueberry, and one of my favorite quick breads is pumpkin. I bake with pumpkin like some bake with applesauce – as an oil replacement. I also had the cookie base of my vanilla coffee fudge bars in mind as I was imagining the flours I wanted to include here – for the grainy flavors and textures.

Beast was amazing. It’s family style, meaning there are two seatings a night, a prix fixe menu and everyone is served together. It’s really fun to chat with others seated at your table – we got lucky and had a few really neat people seated with us!

Last night, I wanted to continue Valentines, and I surprised Jason with a homemade four course dinner of my own…

This was inspired by the Valentines dessert we enjoyed at Beast – we were served a chocolate truffle cake topped with a brûléed housemade marshmallow and a candied rose petal. It was amazing, and I wanted it again last night.

I made a gluten free chocolate truffle torte, very dense and rich.
I topped it with Jason’s favorite, vanilla bean ice cream, and my favorite, salted caramel sauce.

This torte? Probably one of my top five recipes ever! I can’t decide if I want to write a cook book or open a bakery!

Mix flour, oats, brown sugar. Prepare egg replacer and add to dry mixture – it will be crumbly. Press a very small amount into bottom of baking dish (9×9 – I used 7×10). Arrange a single layer of apple slices in baking over crumble, using half. Sprinkle a very small amount of of oats over apple layer. Add a second layer of remaining apples. Top with crumb mixture. Melt butter and pour over top.

Bake at 350 for 35 minutes.

This is crazy delicious.

What’s your favorite fall dessert? What fall fruit are you enjoying right now?

Because those brownies are not at my house, and because we are having company stay a bit (YAY !!), I found myself #1, with no dessert and #2, extra people around to help me eat it. Like I need a reason…

One of my favorite sweets has always been the crumble on top of a crisp, a pie, a danish… that sugary, crumbly deliciousness. You cannot leave me alone with it, I will pick all the crumble off and leave a naked crisp, pie, danish…

Since it’s summertime summer is hopefully on its way, I wanted to make a fruit crisp. It turns out it’s very easy to make a crumble topping that is both gluten free and vegan. This is what I did:

About

Hello! I am Kristina, also known as spabettie. I love the FOOMP and CRACKLE of a vintage flash bulb, and I love the view from my own camera. I love karaoke, tennis, and dachshunds. and I love food. Here you will find my plant based recipes - from the vibrant and bright to the luxuriously tasty. When it comes to food, my mind is always in overdrive, and I have an endless list of ideas to share! More about me…